Germany's Jamal Musiala Credit: David Butler Ii-Imagn Images
By Drew Lerner on

This post was updated to add context from a report by David Covucci in FOIAball.

German supporters left Boston shell-shocked on Monday after their World Cup squad fell to a scrappy Paraguay team in a penalty shootout during the Round of 32. The devastation, it seems, has broken even the team’s most optimistic and joyful supporter.

Freddy, or @FreddyLA7 as his handle would read, became the viral sensation of this World Cup. A wide-eyed German youngster, Freddy gained a (seemingly organic) following in the lead-up to the World Cup by posting his travels throughout the United States, discovering the innocent joys of late-night Taco Bell, diverse landscapes, and Ella Langley as he and his German buddies traversed the country.

Freddy’s X account skyrocketed in popularity as June went on, and the anonymous German started meeting with the likes of JJ Watt and NASA astronauts, and seemingly anyone or any brand looking for an instant injection of free publicity.

But now, fewer than 24 hours after Germany’s defeat, Freddy’s account is nowhere to be found. It appears as if Germany’s early exit from the World Cup officially broke Freddy.

The Freddy saga has inspired some wild conspiracy theories. Some found his positive outlook too pure to be true, questioning if he was some sort of plant designed to engage in guerrilla marketing tactics for the brands, people, or even states that he was posting about. Others thought the anonymous Freddy was some sort of social experiment designed to play out in front of hoards of social media followers.

And there’s reason to believe that at least some of Freddy’s fame isn’t exactly as it seems. David Covucci of FOIAball recounted a series of abnormalities with Freddy’s X account after he (inadvertently) dug up an old post that seemed to show him defending rapping the N-word. Covucci outlined a seemingly similar run of overwhelmingly positive posts Freddy made about Saudi Arabia in 2025. He pointed out some inconsistencies between Freddy’s Ronaldo fandom and his decision not to attend a Portugal match he had once said he had tickets for.

Freddy took to his still-active Instagram account on Tuesday to explain why he deactivated his X page.

In an Instagram story, Freddy explained that it was his plan “all along” to delete the X account following his World Cup trip. And although he announced plans to stay in the United States until after the World Cup final in mid-July, he chose to delete the account early because “too many people seem[ed] to have a problem with us having a genuinely good time here in the country.” He later added that X is “just too toxic,” making posting on the platform no longer enjoyable.

If that’s the case, good on Freddy for letting it go, despite the rip-roaring success his account has seen in the past month. But there’s still reason to be skeptical about his rise to fame in the past few weeks.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner